Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?
The moment you start to talk about playing music, you destroy music. It cannot be talked about. It can only be played, enjoyed and listened to.
The biggest government waste: The death penalty. An individual death-penalty case could climb to $100 million, much of it spent at the litigation level. Also, DNA evidence has exonerated nearly 300 death-row inmates.
I think I'm built like a painter. I have friends who are painters and they reflect a similar psychological attitude towards their work. They don't know what's coming next, they just wait for the message, for orders to come and then off they go on their next project.
I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.
At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds.
I never read comics growing up. I didn't have money and I don't like to touch paper.
When the music arrives in my mind, it gives me the direction and the form at the same time. It's integrated into the music itself.
I was dealing with a lot of spiritual questions like "Who am I?" "What is God" "What is the meaning of life?" All of these questions that I think we can either face head on or choose to ignore, it's up to us.
In a certain sense, these were lessons I learned by playing with Indian musicians. The rhythmic forms that they use are very complex, and very challenging. In order to play in fifteen, or eleven, or seven or even five, you have to have mastered that time in order to be able to be free with the music.
There is really no spiritual message that I'm trying to convey with my music, it's just a personal thing. I really believe that the more personal we get, in a way, the more universal the implications.
